What do you need to do to make sure your brand is AI-ready? (part 2)

Annaleis Montgomery, SEO account director, Tug Agency: “Appearing in AIOs, LLMs, AI Mode and social search all feed into each other and are all based on your website and how crawlers see the website as an entity. To optimize your content for search, it still needs to be website first; brand messaging is consistent, content is helpful and relevant and this is then demonstrated and reiterated across trusted and primary sources (and your social media platforms). Linking to or from these sources is vital in building your site as a trusted entity and one that LLMs are likely to advocate for.

“Creating topical authority still stands, but has evolved into understanding your audience and what prompts they are searching for. We are leaning away from individual keyword improvement to a cluster of terms or prompts that your website is satisfying. Leveraging AI measurement tools can also help you identify gaps in misunderstanding or opportunities for content creation.”

Anisha Kshetrapal, performance marketing consultant, Rika: “It’s already well-established that AI-driven search is shaping consumer behavior at scale, with Bain and Company estimating that about  80% of consumers rely on generative agents for at least 40% of their searches. Yet, many brands and their tech teams haven’t updated their digital properties or strategies to keep pace.

“At Rika, we began this journey with our clients over 18 months ago and one standout success is De’Longhi, spotlighted by OpenAI in a recent press release for the launch of the product recommendation feature.

“So, how can you replicate that? We’ve identified three pillars that make the difference. Firstly, content structure. AI rewards depth and clarity. Brands need to move beyond keyword tactics and build content that answers real questions with authority. EEAT principles (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness) are central. Content categorization, taxonomies, FAQs, transcripts, tables and multimodal assets all help AI parse your content and trust your brand.

“Secondly, technical fundamentals. An API-first CMS, site speed, UX (great frontend) and schema markup are as important as ever. In the answer-engine era, they decide whether AI can crawl, contextualize and interpret your content. And thirdly, brand strategy. The more a brand is recognized and referenced, the more likely it is to be recommended. Above-the-line investment keeps you in the consideration set more than you know.”

Eli Ferrara, head of creative innovation, FCB Canada: “To win in the age of AI search, brands must go beyond traditional SEO and focus on shaping their narrative. AI models draw from both training data, which can be over a year old and largely outside of a brand’s control, and real-time web data, where brands do have some control. This is where the battleground lies. As AI tools favor authoritative, high-quality sources (think major news outlets and official websites), it’s crucial to keep brand information accurate, consistent and up to date across credible channels.

“Adding to the complexity, these models don’t always pull from the same sources, so ongoing monitoring matters. New tools now track how brands are represented across AI models, giving marketers a way to spot gaps and update content strategically. If you don’t shape the data around your brand, the AI will do it for you…and you may not like the result.”

Dennis Kirschner, CMO and co-founder, ShowHeroes Group: “To enhance their visibility in AI search results, brands should prioritize investing a significant portion of their marketing and communication budget into the open web. AI search tools primarily draw data and insights from premium publications on the open web. By focusing on these sources, brands can connect directly with the materials that inform AI overviews.

“The relationship between AI search tools and digital media outlets is not a balanced one. These tools extract data from publications, often with minimal compensation for the content creators. So, by investing more in the open web, brands not only improve their search visibility but also support digital publications and their high-quality editorial output, contributing to the long-term viability of the digital publishing industry.”

Jonathan Hassell, CEO, Hassell Inclusion: “The same way that accessibility helps SEO, accessibility can help improve your standing in AI search. While the exact methods AI tools use to determine which sources to display remain unclear, making your content accessible significantly increases the chances of being recognized.

“Take video content; it’s one of the most consumer marketing formats, but AI struggles to summarize it without a clear transcript. Providing accurate transcripts not only ensures your brand and names are spelled right, it also helps AI interpret, trust and understand your video content.

“The more accessible and well-structured the information on your site, posts, or documents, the more confident AI will be in using them as reliable sources. If images need to be scanned to read the text in them, AI is less likely to select your content, making accessibility a crucial strategy for standing out in AI search results.”

Conor Wynne, creative technology director, Verve The Live Agency: “Since the get-go, SEO has spat out one-size-fits-all results: glossy pages stuffed with meta tags, often making it hard to find what you actually want. But the demographic raised on 5G and web3 know exactly what they’re after. They don’t just want an answer, they want their answer, shaped around taste, context and nuance.

“That’s why AI feels so natural in 2025. It’s not a pile of links; it’s a conversation. It can zoom out when you’re exploring something new, or dig deeper when you need detail. And now, after some bumps, it’s pulling from places that actually feel credible: licensed feeds alongside the messy brilliance of Reddit threads and communities. That blend of fact-checked reporting and human insight is a potent mix.

What fascinates me most is the (maybe unwarranted) trust we’re putting into AI. We trust it not because it’s always right, but because it feels more personal, like it gets what we actually mean, not just what we typed. That’s exactly how audiences approach live experiences, too. Generic doesn’t cut it any more. We expect things to be tuned to our world.”

Shannon Millard, vice-president, platform solutions, Epsilon: “People are drawn to the kind of curation AI seems to offer. Like asking a knowledgeable friend, they’re starting to expect much more specificity. It’s not ‘sports underwear’ any more, it’s ‘what underwear is good for running in the summer and stops chafing?’ That’s the sort of query that AIs are picking up and brands need to write for.

“Review your site, your app and how you show up on retailer pages so the product data is structured in a way that machines can make sense of. Adjust titles, product descriptions and metadata to genuinely answer questions. Natural language is what AI understands best, so use it. And don’t stop at describing what a product is, explain why it’s useful in different contexts, for different people, across different needs.

“But remember, search is just one touchpoint in a much bigger journey. People are still influenced by emails, shop experiences, TV placements and app connections. Brands that combine answers to specific, human questions with consistent visibility across channels will be best placed to keep customers coming back.”

Bonnie Moss, president and founder, Moss Networks: “While focusing on your earned media strategy to increase mentions in credible third-party outlets is by far the best way to maximize visibility in LLMs, there are steps you can take to make your brand’s owned content more appealing to AI search engines. For example, start with the bread and butter of AI search: questions and answers. Find the questions that you’d like to surface for, and put them in the headline or first sentence of your content with the answer directly following.

“To find the questions your prospects might ask, combine your company’s customer search data with ideas from AI chatbots. For example, ask Claude, Perplexity, or another LLM what customers in your industry want to know about a particular product, problem, or software solution. Once you’ve collected a solid reference bank, use it to inform future content topics and bolster your thought leaders’ authority when pitching them for media features in authority-building outlets.”

Dane Buchanan, global chief data and analytics officer, M+C Saatchi Performance: “AI search is rewriting the rules of discovery. For over 25 years, Google has defined how people find your brand. Now LLMs, such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, are competing to be the first stop for answers – and brands can’t afford to sit it out.

“There’s no rulebook yet, but three levers matter: what’s in an LLM’s training data (often 6–18 months old), how your brand appears on today’s live web and the context of a user’s prompt. While brands can’t control these directly, they can shape them.

“The winning move? Create content that works for humans and machines: clear, distinct and grounded in real consumer needs. Back it up with credible proof, make it crawlable and diversify formats – text, video, structured data, FAQs and reviews. Then track how you show up across platforms. Once you have a benchmark, test, optimize and repeat.

“Stop chasing keywords. Start building cultural and credible brand-led signals that AI can’t ignore.”

Lorraine van den Biggelaar, head of organic performance, Locaria: “In the AI search era, authority wins. A well-thought-out keyword mapping strategy is no longer good enough. We are no longer competing for keyword rankings on a page-by-page basis; we are competing to become a source for LLMs. And they’re looking at how your brand is presented as well as how it relates to every other source mentioning it. It’s no longer just about the overall structure and content of your site; it’s about contextual authority and consistency across everything that’s out there.

“That all sounds great, but how do you apply this to your brand strategy? And if you’re active in multiple languages and markets, how do you take control? A few tips. Firstly, publish fact-rich, credible content, ideally containing first-hand knowledge and information from recognized experts. For brands that are active in multiple markets, this means going beyond simple translation. You need native-language content shaped by local search habits, cultural nuance and region-specific terminology. And the more your brand is cited in reputable, locally relevant sources, the more confidently AI tools will surface you in their answers.

“And finally: practice patience. Establishing a reputation, especially across multiple markets, takes time and should be part of your long-term strategy, because meaningful authority isn’t built overnight.”

Cora Lin, VP analytics, Jack Morton: “AIO – or, as we like to call it, GEO (generative engine optimization) – might sound complex, but succeeding in AI search actually hinges on simplicity. Forget technical overhauls; focus on clear, human-friendly content.

“The key? Strong, well-structured content offering valuable, accessible information. Ensure high website usability with easy navigation for both users and AI. Provide clear context, using structured formats such as lists and headings. Minimize jargon and instead opt for concise, engaging language. After all, people use AI to distill complex information into direct answers. Brands can win by mirroring this: being direct and easy to understand from the outset.

“If you’re already prioritizing clear, structured content, you’re well-positioned for GEO. Test your content by summarizing it with an AI engine to ensure key takeaways are easily understood and align with your brand’s message. In the age of AI, simple and accessible wins.”